Historical Society Hosts Lecture

Art historian Donald Dwyer will present a lecture and discussion on McKim, Mead and White, the largest and most influential architecture office in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The brilliance of Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead, and Stanford White changed the course of American architecture and championed the movement to introduce classical order to America's cities. The architectural firm designed the second Garden City Hotel in the early 1900s, and several Garden City streets, including Osborne and Wetherill, are named for relatives of Stanford White.

The McKim, Mead and White lecture is scheduled for Thursday, March 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the Garden City Historical Society Museum, 109 Eleventh Street. Admission is free; refreshments will be served.

During the period between 1879 and 1912, McKim, Mead and White grew their reputation and their firm, employing over 100. The firm became the model for the modern architectural practice. They established procedures for controlling every stage and detail of the architectural process. During its first thirty years the firm received and executed nearly one thousand commissions, trained the next generation of American architects, and created standards of conduct for professional practice in this country.

Some of the firm's extraordinary projects in Manhattan include, the original Pennsylvania Station (1910), the New York Herald Building at Herald Square (1894), New York City's Municipal Building across from City Hall (1914), The Low Library (1893) and St. Paul's Chapel (1904) on the Columbia University campus, St. Bartholomew's Church (1902) on Park Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets, The Harvard Club (1894) on West 44th Street, the north and south wings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1911), the University Club (1899) the Metropolitan Club (1894), and some of the finest Gilded Age homes in Newport, RI. Stanford White designed the second of four successive Madison Square Garden buildings (1890)-his facility featured the largest amphitheater in America.

Our lecturer, Professor Don Dwyer, has taught art history, from pre-recorded art text up to the present. His specialties include architecture, sculpture, painting, interiors, furniture and decorative arts. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Cranbrook Institute of Art and Oakland University (Michigan), C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and currently is affiliated with Parsons School of Design, New York Institute of Technology and the School of Visual Arts. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in art history from the University of Michigan, a M.Ph. in Art History from Columbia University and studied "English Country Houses" at the National Trust in England. He has a reading knowledge of French, Italian and German, and has lectured for museums, institutions and art groups within the New York area.